Shows

BOLDtext Playwrights are delighted to announce the panel for their audience discussion, ‘Sentencing for the Future’, which follows their latest show, The Sentence, three brand new short plays at Birmingham REP on Monday 28 January 8pm.

The post-show discussion panel will be chaired by Professor Jackie Hodgson from Warwick University’s School of Law. Jackie has organised a range of public engagement events around prisoner well-being and women in prison, and her research has focused on comparative criminal justice in the UK and Europe.

Jackie will be joined by Gregor Forde, community activist, advocate for the alienated and disadvantaged, with lived experience of the criminal justice system. Former probation officer Tania Bassett is our third panel member – she is the Midlands link official for NAPO, the Trade Union & Professional Association for Probation and Family Court Staff. Tania works closely with the MOJ to develop training and professional standards.

THE SENTENCE

Paying the Price by Liz John
A disgraced surgeon awaits sentencing, when a young solicitor arrives with unexpected news.

Offences Against the Person by Vanessa Oakes
Why do sentences sometime bemuse and enrage the public?

Working Mother by Julia Wright
Karen will soon be leaving prison. Has she learned her lesson? Sophie tries to help her but is it working?

The evening is a ‘pay what you can on the night’ show, so tickets are free to book HERE, or by calling The REP box office on 0121 236 4455. Our script-in-hand new writing nights often sell out, so it’s best to reserve tickets in advance.

The Sentence is part of The REP’s ‘Open Door’ season, directed by Vicki Duckett and curated by Vanessa Oakes & Julia Wright. The performance will be followed by the panel discussion, ‘Sentencing for the Future’ – after which we can retire to the bar to continue the conversation.

It’s been quite a year for BOLDtext Playwrights with our first ever site-specific show ‘Behind Bars: Ghosts of the Lock-Up’ selling out this autumn. Thank you to everyone who came and gave their support.

Our fascination with crime and punishment continues with The Sentence, three new hard-hitting short plays from some of region’s foremost writers – Liz John, Vanessa Oakes and Julia Wright.

The Sentence 8 pm Monday 28th January 2019 @ The REP

“When a trial ends it sends ripples through a community, but does the sentence fit the crime? Has justice really been done?” asks Coventry-based Vanessa Oakes. “With this show we’re shining a dramatic spotlight on sentencing and exploring the inevitable fallout for everyone affected.”

The evening is a ‘pay what you can on the night’ show (we’ll shake a bucket at you on exit), so tickets are free to book NOW by clicking on the link below, or by calling The REP box office on0121 236 4455. Our script-in-hand new writing nights often sell out, so it’s best to reserve tickets in advance.

The Sentence is part of The REP’s ‘Open Door’ season, directed by Vicki Duckett and curated by Vanessa Oakes and Julia Wright. The performance will be followed by a short panel discussion.

BOLDtext Playwrights’ most recent show, Behind Bars – Ghosts of the Lock Up, went down a storm in Birmingham city centre last month – with sell-out audiences who loved the humorous and heart-wrenching tales we told, as well as the more everyday stories embedded in the WM Police former Lock Up building. It felt like our contrasting voices each captured something different from the space, with wonderful performances to bring them to life. “Emotionally transporting”, ” Very atmospheric – shivers down my spine several times”, and “Really unique experience” were just some of the comments from our many visitors.

And it was a unique experience for us too – we absolutely loved this site-specific work and hope to do more of the same – both at the Lock Up and elsewhere around the region. We just need to decide where – so if you have any suggestions, please do get in touch.

Our thanks to Arts Council England and Sir Barry Jackson Trust for their support with this project, and of course everyone at the proposed WM Police Museum who made us feel so welcome.

In the meantime, BOLDtext is working on another night of political shorts at Birmingham Rep on Monday 28 January 2019, so watch this space.

Our new show ‘Behind Bars: Ghosts of the Lock-Up’ runs from the 19th-21st October for nine performances only. Taking a theatrical journey through Birmingham’s Steelhouse Lane Lock-Up, it will raise spirits from the prison’s past. Julia Wright writes about one of them…

When we were given the possible choices for characters whose stories we could tell, I chose Maud Dillon, as she seemed at first to be a woman who was caught up in a life of prostitution. I was interested to find out why she might have been involved in that when she was a woman who had a job as a polisher – likely to be a metal polisher who worked in the jewellery industry. Was she desperate for money?

The only information about Maud Dillon is that she was 25 when she was arrested on 5/8/1921 for indecent behaviour. She was given a fine – £4 or 25 days in prison. I then discovered that ‘indecent behaviour’ could range from shouting and swearing in public to soliciting (prostitution). So maybe she was merely shouting and swearing in public? But why? When looking into the work that police women did at the time I found it seemed to contain a lot of what we would now call social work. Young women were picked up from around the station, seeking to meet soldiers and in 1919, 25% of them were under 17. What dreadful lives drove them to that?

In June 1918 a hostel was set up in Dale End to ensure women were in a place of safety from abuse while further enquiries were made to find them work or more permanent lodgings – one of the first hostels in the country. The workhouse was where some women who were abused ended up but was feared by all and women would be separated from their children (children still legally belonged to the father until 1925 so it was difficult for many women to leave abusive relationships). For some women the workhouse was better than the abuse at home

Miss Dorothy Peto became a lady enquiry officer with the CID in Birmingham in 1920. She visited homes, investigating indecent assaults and abuse and stated ‘the relief of victims was obvious when they saw a female police officer had come to take their statement.’

I have linked together the work of Dorothy Peto and a possible explanation for Maud Dillon’s arrest to highlight the often appalling abuse that women had to endure, sometimes at the hands of their partners. The disturbed mental conditions of returning soldiers were often not recognised and PTSD was not diagnosed or understood.

For discounted tickets CLICK HERE or if there or none left try the link below:

Our new show ‘Behind Bars: Ghosts of the Lock-Up’ runs from the 19th-21st October for nine performances only. Taking a theatrical journey through Birmingham’s Steelhouse Lane Lock-Up, it will raise spirits from the prison’s past. Helen Kelly writes about one of them…

Evelyn Miles was one of the first police women in England, taking up the uniform after her troubled husband was dispatched to Handsworth Asylum. An unwed mother at 18, the housekeeper to a doctor, the wife of a police sergeant suffering from mental illness – my reading of her character is that she was an empathetic person, drawn to Birmingham’s coal face of poverty and social deprivation, like Dorothy Peto after her (also featured in Ghosts of the Lock Up).

With no template or notion of social services, the justice system was society’s last net for lost souls, deeply flawed, maybe, but with a burgeoning complement of compassionate women coming through in the early Twentieth Century, to bring some sense of social responsibility towards those who had been abandoned by society, and lost their way.

I loved it that Evelyn was in her fifties when she embarked on her new life (hope for us all) and still holds the record for the oldest serving female officer in the West Midlands aged 77 when she retired.

You can meet Evelyn and many other fascinating characters in BEHIND BARS: Ghosts of the Lock-Up 19th – 21st October.

For discounted tickets CLICK HERE or if there or none left try the link below:

Our new show ‘Behind Bars: Ghosts of the Lock-Up’ runs from the 19th-21st October for nine performances only. Taking a theatrical journey through Birmingham’s Steelhouse Lane Lock-Up, it will raise spirits from the prison’s past. Stephen Jackson writes about one of them…

No high heels, no short skirts – that’s the advice for anyone coming to our next show. Why? Because it takes place in a jail and our audience will have to negotiate the walkways and spiral staircases of Birmingham’s Steelhouse Lane Lock-Up – three floors of echoing prison cells and clanging doors.

It’s a fantastic venue for a theatrical experience. Its shadows are full of ghosts. Incredibly, this nineteenth-century prison was in use until just recently, but we have gone back a hundred years to look at some of its legendary prisoners and staff.

When I saw the list of characters, there was only one I wanted to write about: Thomas Larvin – one of the Lock-Up’s craziest inmates. Arrested countless times for drunkenness, he became best known by his nickname Tommy Tank – a reference to his enormous capacity for drink.

A fishmonger and street hawker, Tommy was also a joker and a prankster who would do anything for a bet – especially if booze was involved. Apparently he once walked backwards from Deritend to Stonebridge with a brick on his head to win a bet for copious amounts of ale.

On other occasions he was known to bite the heads off rats to earn himself a drink. Tommy was a colourful character around town. Unfortunately, his drinking led to skirmishes with pub landlords, broken windows and overnight stays in the Lock-Up before his frequent appearances in court the next morning.

If you’d like to meet Tommy and other ghosts of the Lock-Up, remember not to wear your high heels. It should be a great show in a great venue. It would be a crime to miss it.

Our new show ‘Behind Bars: Ghosts of the Lock-Up’ runs from the 19th-21st October for nine performances only. Taking a theatrical journey through Birmingham’s Steelhouse Lane Lock-Up, it will raise spirits from the prison’s past. Vanessa Oakes writes about one of them…

I’ve been writing about a murder.

A murder involving two real life Peaky Blinders, a spinster and a pair of false teeth.

On 25th October, 1898, at the age of 23, James Twitty broke into Miss Aliban’s house with his accomplice Mumby:

we only meant to gag her… not frighten her to death… i even sang to her to help calm her down.

They had planned to rob her – Mary Ann Aliban (age 60) had a number of rental properties in Birmingham and was well known in the neighbourhood for carrying a large amount of money around in her carpet bag:

all the neighbours heard her… clink… clink… as she walked… clink… clink… clink… as she sat counting her coins of a night… she’d even ask people to feel the weight of her bag… she was asking for it.

Twitty and Mumby gained entry through the cellar (it was reported that Twitty had previously worked for a coal merchant) and waited for her return. They then took their boots off and crept upstairs to search the house – she was asleep by the time they reached her bedroom but on waking began to scream.

They quickly tied her to the bed and gagged her with a silk handkerchief. They then grabbed a small amount of money nearby and left. The robbery was a failure – the police later found £108 hidden in the house.

Tragically Mary died having swallowed her false teeth:

how was we to know she’d swallow her false teeth… who wears their snaggs to bed?!

Having read all the sensational newspaper reports from the period I felt strongly that I wanted my short play to remember what happened to Mary and to provide some small sort of retribution. She must have been terrified as she choked to death. Too often we remember the names of the criminals and forget their victims.

Originally charged with murder Twitty and Mumby’s sentences were eventually commuted to penal servitude for life. In 1915 Twitty was declared insane and moved to Broadmoor, where he died mute, aged 73.

You can meet Twitty as well as a host of other characters from the Lock-Up’s past in Behind Bars – Ghosts of the Lock-Up.

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Writing for the stage

Welcome to our website. We are working playwrights who aim to create more
opportunities and new platforms for our work in the Midlands and beyond, including Birmingham Repertory Theatre and Warwick Words